Naruto: the Videogame
by Chibi-Reaper
Summary: Naruto dies.... game over? Wait, what's this about a 'new game? And... whoa! Those statues are all of him!
1. Chapter 1

Naruto: The Videogame

xxx

Naruto coughed lightly, spraying blood into the air that hovered at their peak for a moment, then fell to splatter down next to his face. Frankly, he was surprised that he'd managed to hold on for as long as he had, even with the Kyuubi chakra holding him together.

Sasuke hadn't stopped with just the chidori to his lungs. He'd wanted to make _absolutely_ sure that Naruto had died and so, once he got up, he'd taken out his kunai and started stabbing and carving. Every single internal organ was punctured at least twice, typically more like five or six times, and the bastard had carefully broken every single one of his ribs before reaching in and tugging out his heart and crushing it in his hand. Then, before he'd left, he'd slit Naruto's throat, cut off his hands and feet, and buried the kunai he'd used in Naruto's left eye. He could feel it sitting there, tickling where it had pierced the tissues of his brain, as he seemed to have endured so much pain in so little time that apparently his nerves had gone out on strike, leaving him cresting the wave on a zen-like plateau of numbness.

With so much damage, even the Kyuubi wasn't much help. He was only holding on through pure strength of will, and that was fading fast...

Kakashi arrived as it started raining, and barely spared him a glance as he passed, Pakkun following Sasuke's trail as best he could before the rain washed it away. That hurt... it hurt more than all the damage inflicted by Sasuke combined. He was still lingering on... he wasn't dead yet! Was it too much to ask that his sensei spare a kind word for a student in his final moments? He wasn't dead yet... he wasn't... he...

His last breath left him, and he was dead.

It was dark, and cold. Was it supposed to be so cold? Where were the servants of kami, come to collect him like in the tales? Where were the demons, to drag him into purgatory, if he didn't rate a heavenly afterlife? Where was... anyone? Anything?

A tinny, mournful strand of music started up in the distance, like a dull harp, and he started to walk to find it. He didn't know how long he walked, only that it was shorter than forever and longer than no time at all, before he found himself in a dimly lit area, with a dark spotlight shining down on a shallow grave.

It read 'Game Over'.

Everything faded away, and there was light, and a scroll hovering in front of him. After a moment, he opened it, and stared at what he found inside.

_Scores:_

_Survived to see _Fourteenth_ birthday... _140 _points._

_Learned _Henge_ technique... _10_ points._

_Bonus _10_ points for creating improved variation._

_Learned _Kawarimi_ technique..._ 10_ points._

_Learned _Kage-Bunshin _technique... _50 _points._

_Mastered _Tree-Walking_ technique... _10_ points._

_Defeated _Haku50_ points._

_Learned _Rasengan_ technique... _100_ points._

_Acquired_ Toad _summons... _100 _points._

_Defeated _Sabaku no Gaara 50_ points._

_Convinced Tsunade to take post of Gondaime... _100 _points._

_Evaded capture by Akatsuki _1 _time(s)... _10_ points._

_Subtotal: _640 _points._

_Used Kyuubi Chakra on _4_ occasion(s)... _-40_ points._

_Needlessly antagonized Konoha citizens on _193_ occasions... _-193_ points._

_Failed to prevent Orochimaru from placing cursed seal upon Sasuke in Forest of Death... _-100_ points._

_Lost important person _Sandaime_ during _Oto/Suna Invasion-150_ points._

_Failed to prevent Sasuke from leaving the village... _-100_ points._

_Failed to return Sasuke to village... _-50_ points._

_Died in battle... _-200 _points._

_Subtotal: _-833 _points._

_Final Total: _-193_ points. Rating: _Loser! You Suck!

_Negative Score! Unlocked _Worthless Naruto

Naruto stared, then slowly blinked. Then his hands began vibrating and his teeth clenched in rage.

"What... the... FUCK?"

The scroll dissolved into motes of light and floated away as the light dimmed revealing he was floating in the air above Konoha. The background music had been changed to something more upbeat, with occasional rattling of bamboo. He stared, seeing, but not comprehending.

Floating in front of him was a large, semi-transparent billboard with the words 'Naruto- the RPG' on it. Beneath, in smaller letters were the words 'New Game', and beneath that was 'Load'. He glanced down through the village in a dull state of shock. There were countless people meandering through the streets, going about their daily business, but either nobody had looked up yet or he was invisible from below.

He shook his head. So far, death had been nothing like he'd expected. He should probably just go with the flow.

He hit the button next to 'Load' and a message appeared beneath it.

_Error... no files found._

Blinking, he tried again. And again. Same message both times. He sighed deeply and hit the 'New game' button instead.

The billboard dissappeared, and he found himself in an incredibly huge, but dimly lit room, filled with statues of... himself. An echoey voice rang out through the room.

"Choose your character."

"Oh this is just fan-fucking-tastic." Naruto muttered, taking a closer look at the statues. On reflection, the only way he could tell that they were of him was because of the hair... everything else was vague and formless, a simple caricature of a man. They were faceless, and the image of a closed lock was carved into their chests. There were plaques at their feet. Leaning down, he inspected one.

"Demonblood Naruto... Unlock conditions, use Kyuubi Chakra twenty plus times, end game with positive score."

He shook his head and moved on to the next one.

"Naruko... Unlock conditions, spend a total of more than a year under female henge."

This was surreal. He started walking through the room, glancing at the plaques now and again as he passed. Hanyou Naruto. Windmaster Naruto. Weapon Naruto. Taijutsu Naruto. Braniac Naruto. Jester Naruto. Blacksmith Naruto. Archer Naruto. Swordsman Naruto. Uchiha Naruto.

Naruto paused for several long moments at that one before continuing. Finally, he came to two statues, side by side, that were exquisitely detailed and coated with a finish of paint that made them look impossibly realistic. One was of him with an arm stuck forward, thumb extended, grinning widely. Basic Naruto. The other was of him too, but was a contrast in opposites. His head hung down with his shoulders slumped, mouth halfway into a sullen pout. Worthless Naruto.

The plaque at the base of this one was much larger, to fit a detailed summary. He squatted down to read it.

_Worthless Naruto... is just that. Completely worthless. He has no talent whatsoever in any of the three ninja disciplines of Nin- Gen- and Taijutsu, and his chakra control is even more flawed than the Basic Naruto. Compounding that, he has only slightly above average levels of chakra rather than the prodigious amounts even Basic Naruto can call upon. Also, he lacks any form of grace, and his clumsiness is detrimental in situations requiring stealth, and his aim with thrown weapons is atrocious enough that he is more of a danger to his allies than any enemies. On the plus side, due to the difficulty of surviving long at all with this character, point bonuses are accordingly increased. But you have to wonder if it's worth it to use such a pathetic waste of space._

Naruto leaned slowly back, eye twitching madly at the impressively blunt description. He finally understood. He was in hell. And it was worse than he could have possibly imagined. His gaze flicked to the other plaque.

_Basic Naruto. Hovering just below average in everything but Chakra control, which is low indeed, and Chakra reserves, which are phenominal, Basic Naruto has a lot of his work in his future if he wants to become Hokage. Hint-try focusing on raising chakra control to start, as it pays off with _big_ benefits if you improve it fast enough._

Naruto sighed and reached forward, choosing the lesser of two evils, deciding to be optimistic about this. He didn't understand what the hell was going on, but it looked like he was being offerred a second chance at life. A weird sort of second chance, but what could you do?

The world faded away, shrank, and twisted until he found himself held in the strong, wiry arms of an old man he knew well.

"This child... is the Saviour of Konoha!"

There was a long moment of silence before the crowd in front of him shifted into a raging mob, calling for the infants death as it bawled at the top of its small lungs.

xxx

It was all too soon that Naruto found himself floating above Konoha again, in front of that same billboard. And then again. And again, after that. He was becoming truly surprised at just how incredibly lucky he'd been in his first incarnation just to live to see his first birthday.

Being an infant sucked. _Dying_ as an infant sucked a thousand times worse, especially when you were fully aware and conscious of yourself, but could still do nothing but cry out as someone smothered you with a pillow, or stabbed you, or broke your tiny neck. And since the Kyuubi's energy hadn't fully incorporated itself into his own chakra coils yet, he couldn't heal himself of so much as a papercut, much less a mortal wound.

All he could do was wail at the top of his tiny lungs whenever the would-be killers appeared, and hope that he'd timed it right to catch the attention of whatever ANBU or Jounin was on guard at the moment. And he had to mind when he wailed to be fed or... changed... as well, as the best guards would simply refuse to keep guarding him if he was wailing all the time, leaving him with less picky, but also less experienced, shinobi. That quickly lead to him dying more and more often, to the point where he was familiar enough with it that he could hum that little mournful tinny strand of music in his sleep. And did, much to his embarassment.

On the plus side, he'd finally figured out how to 'save' his progress, allowing him to resume his life from that point, rather than going right back to being shown off to an angry mob. It was weird, as was everything else about this. He just focused in the right way, and time itself seemed to freeze, and suddenly he was hovering next to himself and looking at an unfurled scroll. He just had to make a mark on it, and it would fill itself out with his classification, the date, and the time. The scroll seemed to be infinitely long as well, despite its small size, and so he had no qualms about exploiting it to its maximum efficiency.

Really, that was the only way he'd actually managed to survive to hit his first birthday.

He'd discovered that absolutely nothing ever changed unless he changed it. Unless he irritated them into quitting, he would have the same guardians all the time. Unless he started crying when someone was talking, they would say the same thing at the same time, always. It got hella boring real quick. On the other hand, the attemptive murderers would always strike at the same time and the same way too.

So he would save about ten minutes before an attack, and then go through a little trial and painful error to figure out when, exactly, was the right time to start screaming. Too early, and the murderer would shut him up quick before the patrolling bodyguard heard. Too late, and he was dead anyway. Usually, the right time was a matter of only a few seconds span, sometimes less.

Naturally, he would save again immediately afterwards, not wanting to have to die five or six more times before hitting exactly the right moment to scream again.

When he hit his first birthday, his demonic regeneration began to set in and the attacks petered off to the monthly attempt that he recalled, with a particularly violent one in octobers.

He relearned how to walk and speak, and then... he grew a little lax. He knew pretty much what was going to happen from this point on, so he could breeze through no problem, right?

Wrong. Things went well enough until the graduation incident...

He decided to conserve his strength after stealing the scroll from the Hokage tower so that he could finish Mizuki before he hurt Iruka-sensei. Except that he couldn't produce the Rasengan. Or make Kage-Bunshin. Or do much of anything at all except stand there stupidly and stare at his hands like they'd betrayed him as Mizuki cut his head off with his giant shuriken.

Ah. There was that music again. And here he was once more, floating in whiteness and contemplating a low score, before floating over Konoha again. This time he stayed for a while, thinking.

He couldn't use the Kage Bunshin or the Rasengan. Dimly, he knew that he should have known that from the very beginning, as it made perfect sense when you stepped back and thought about it. He hadn't ever learned how to do them, after all. Sure he'd picked up Henge and Kawarimi almost instantly... but he'd done so the first time as well. And you couldn't honestly expect to be able to perform a technique without even _bothering_ to open the scroll it was written on, could you? So... he could only use techniques that he'd actually learned in his current incarnation. He couldn't, say, spend fifty years poring over scrolls and then load an early save and use all those techniques as a six year old and get lauded as a genius.

Well crap. Another plan down the drain. He paused in the middle of that thought and reconsidered. He couldn't do that, but he _could_ take full advantage of other things. Like, for instance, a little fact that he'd already acknowledged. Unless he changed something, then on a specific day the exact same person would do the exact same things at the exact same times. Even if it was an apparently spontaneous decision, like picking between three types of drink at 'random' at a restaurant, they would pick the exact same one every single time.

It was at this point that he started making plans. _Things_ would be moved around at the same times too. People had a habit of leaving things places and only coming back for them later, once they realized it was missing. That applied to all sorts of things. Sacks of chips. Spare kunai. Love letters. Training scrolls. Useless things and useful things at the same time. Even if something was only left sitting alone for ten minutes... that was ten minutes he had to walk up to it, pick it up, and walk away.

The potential for abusing that fact was enormous. He could save, nick the libraries records of who checked out what and when, then reload from the save and steal anything useful that they borrowed. Much easier than trying to sneak something past the watchful eyes of the librarian _and_ all the Jounin that frequented the place, for scrolls and manuals for either themselves or their squad. One at a time was hella easier.

Of course, there was the slight hitch that the only way he'd figured out to come back her... was to die. Which meant that to put his little plans into action, he'd either have to die in battle or commit suicide. Repeatedly.

The idea of dying on purpose galled him. At his own hand, it was infinitely worse. Still, what could you do? He'd already come to the conclusion that this was all an illusion of the afterlife, as he played this twisted 'game' for the amusement of some kami or demon. Maybe the Kyuubi itself. The kitsune had been unnaturally silent recently. Not one single call for blood or unreasoning demand that he destroy something simply because it was _there_ and he _could_ since the first time he'd died.

Hmph. Well if this _was_ just a game, no reason to play it nice.

xxx

A.N.

Well... uh. This kinda spiraled completely out of control. It started off from playing one of the Naruto videogames, then grew force from reading Chunnin Exam Day, with a little spin from a very similar story in the Harry Potter archive. It was fun to read, but all too short. I especially liked the way he would screw around in Snapes classes, then hit the equivalent of the pause and load buttons.

Also, the sort of game I'm describing would be really awesome if it were real. Think like a hundred or so unlockable Naruto's, each different. Like how the games out now might have Kyuubi Naruto and Taijutsu Naruto as unlockable characters, but better, because there would be stuff like Medic Naruto, who would focus on healing himself while whittling slowly away at the opponent's health, Elemental Naruto's, who would focus on a single element type of jutsu, or Swordsman Naruto... basically, the stuff you'd find in AU and crossovers. Of course, this is an RPG setting with Naruto as a customizable hero, leaving everyone else as background NPCs.

So, pretty much your average RPG, except that Naruto is 'playing' as himself. I also have no intention of explaining how he got into this situation. He just is. Deal with it.


	2. Chapter 2

Naruto: The Videogame

xxx

Wiremaster Naruto... his eyes slipped quietly past the plaque.

Summoner Naruto... he paused and flicked his eyes to the requirements. 'Acquire a summoning contract, end game with positive score.' Interesting, but no...

Crossdresser Naruto... he didn't even pay that one a second glance.

Haremlord Naruto... He was tempted by that one. Oh was he tempted... he was a red-blooded male, after all. Still, he eventually managed to pry his eyes away and continue on his little trek.

Experiment 666, Classification Naruto... This one didn't even have instructions on how to unlock it, just '???'. Dandy.

Berserker Naruto... nifty. Of course, he didn't really find the unlock conditions appealing... 'Live for a year and a half with a pack of wild animals'. Yeah. How about... later. Maybe. But probably not.

Illusionist Naruto was the next to catch his eye, but only because of the more complicated requirements to unlock it. He had to first unlock Jester Naruto, then in that incarnation he had to master the clone technique _while in the academy_, as well as one other simple genjutsu, then learn another one after graduating, _but before_ taking the second genin test. A quick bit of backtracking took him to the Jester plaque... to unlock that one, he had to play no less than two hundred successful pranks before entering the academy, _without being caught_, then play at least _five_ hundred more before graduation.

That... that actually sounded kind of fun. Except for the not being caught thing. The only way he could think of to do that would be to be nowhere near the prank when it unfurled... and what the hell was the point of that? The gloating, and then the chase scene after the prank itself was the most fun bit! Even if Iruka caught him every single freaking time... And then he spent hours being lectured... and the punishments...

A glint came to his eye. Alright... if it said he couldn't be caught, then he wouldn't get caught. After all, he had that nifty save option to exploit to its fullest. Advancing the timeline could wait, and he had no real consequences to worry about either! Enough of this angstfest, it was FUN TIME!

xxx

"Hokage-sama! I'm sorry to intrude, but I bring urgent news! Someone... someone has cherry bombed every single public toilet within Konoha's boundaries, all at the same time!"

Sarutobi drew himself up, thankful for the excuse to leave his tower of paperwork behind.

"Who is responsible?"

"We don't know... there are no suspects, sir."

Sarutobi glowered.

xxx

"Hokage-sama! I'm sorry to intrude, but I bring urgent news! Someone has defiled the Hokage mountain, covering it in painted make-up and crude graffiti!"

Sarutobi drew himself up, upset at this newest affront in a string of juvenile pranks, but still preferring to deal with it rather than his mountains of paperwork.

"The perpetrator?"

"Unknown sir."

"As usual..." The Hokage grumbled.

xxx

"Hokage-sama! I'm sorry to intrude, but I bring urgent news! That Bastard has slipped tasteless laxative into the coffemakers in ANBU headquarters, the Jounin-sensei lounge, and the Academy teacher's..."

Sarutobi stood up hastily, and zipped past the messenger on his way to the toilet, accompanied by a sudden upset in his intestinal regions. He'd _thought_ he'd noticed something odd about the coffeemaker that morning...

xxx

"Hokage-sama! I... I don't think you've noticed, but... someone seems to have replaced your hat with a... with a large rubber chicken, Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi slowly lifted his hand upward to confirm that statement.

xxx

"Hokage-sama! I don't mean to disturb, but That Bastard has struck again. This time, Kakashi's volume of Icha Icha Paradise was subtly replaced with their Yaoi-only alternative! He's rampaging through the streets, sir! Nobody can get close to him!"

xxx

"Hokage-sama! Someone... someone left a life size, impressively realistic, and anatomically correct Orochimaru doll stripped naked and tied to Mitarashi Anko's bed! She destroyed the entire apartment complex in her attempt to kill it! We're not sure, but we believe it to be the work of That Bastard."

xxx

"Hokage-sama! Someone has replaced Asuma's trench knives with living fish!"

xxx

"Hokage-sama! That Bastard has stolen the undergarments of every Kunoichi on active duty and run them up a flagpole!"

xxx

"Hokage-sama! Someone has covered every square inch of the walls of the Hyuuga compound with... erotic graffiti! We believe it to be the work of That Bastard!"

xxx

"Hokage-sama! You may not have noticed yet, but That Bastard has cast a genjutsu on your tower! From the outside it appears to be... to be... an animal's phallus! Mothers are blindfolding their children!"

xxx

Naruto erupted in gales of laughter as he looked out on his seven hundredth prank, disguised by just about everyone of the other guys in class doing the same.

Surprisingly, it was even _more_ fun to pull a prank and not get caught, then watch everyone run around like startled chickens trying to figure out who'd done it. And he'd gotten _good_ at leaving no evidence behind. Sure, people had their suspicions. But they _suspected_ a great many things about him, and without cold hard proof he was in the clear.

Also, as time froze and he disconcertingly found himself standing beside himself again, he'd figured out the trick to using the load feature without dying. That was a serious plus. On the other hand, it would be nice if he'd figured it out _before_ getting to the point where he was infinitely familiar with how to kill himself in the swiftest and most painless manner possible, depending on the situation. And it was so _simple_ that he'd very nearly killed himself again out of frustration.

But not quite. Dying still sucked, no matter _how_ familiar you were with it. Of course, he still hadn't figured out a way to get to the invisible floaty around Konoha place without death either, which was why he sighed deeply before tossing the scroll away and restarting time.

Still laughing at the Hokage tower, he pulled a small handful of pilsl out of his pocket and tossed them back. Just one pill had enough concentrated sleeping poison in it to kill a bull elephant within minutes. You'd think that taking so much all at once would be overkill, right? But the fact was that he'd live through any less easily. The Kyuubi's regeneration burned through the poison almost as fast as it workes... so really, nineteen of the pills were just there to buy time for the twentieth to get its butt in gear.

Also, taken in a handful like that, it could easilly be mistaken as him just knocking back some old candy, whereas if he tried to cut his own head off he'd be stopped before he got halfway through his throat by a panicked Iruka. And so long as the Kyuubi was regenerating him, the only way to die of inflicted damage was to either do what Sasuke'd done, and inflict more damage than it could possibly heal, or to completely remove his head from his body.

Yeah... he'd had a lot of time to experiment. He _really_ preferred the pills. No pain, no mess, and as he set his head down he knew that it just looked like he was just deciding to sleep through class.

The only drawback was that commiting suicide had a freaking huge penalty, -1000 points. Five times worse than being slaughtered in combat. On the other hand, he really didn't give a damn, and it was easier than hunting down someone who could be antagonized/tricked/fast talked into killing him.

He heard the strand of music start up as the world blurred, and his eyes closed.

xxx

_Jester Naruto came to be when Sarutobi read aloud a childrens book with a clown in it to a toddling Naruto. This book quickly became young Naruto's favorite, but most especially the clown. At the age of two, he proudly proclaimed that he was 'gonna be the bestest clown ever'. Even after being accepted to the ninja academy, he hasn't quite given up this dream, shown in his face-paint and bright colored motley clothes. And his bag of tricks contains quite a few nasty surprises alongside the joke items. -2 to stealth, bonus 1 to Genjutsu, Juggling, Tailoring. 2 to traps, acrobatics. Pivotal in unlocking Illusionist Naruto, Harlequin Naruto._

Naruto took a step back to take in the newly defined statue. It was... colorful. He could certainly see why he'd have problems with stealth. _Here_ was an outfit that made his blindingly orange jumpsuit look like perfectly well thought out ninja-wear. His pants were baggy, and bright yellow, with other blotches of bright color. His shirt was a pale pink, only a few shades off Sakura's hair, but mostly covered by a jacket of shredded rags of every color of the rainbow stitched together, with an occasional bell tied on here and there, and his shoes were two sizes too large, and painted bright red. Then there was his hair, grown several inches longer than he normally kept it, but still spiked out wildly and dyed a pale purple. To match his lip gloss, he guessed. The rest of his face was painted white, except for a red, four pointed star over his right eye and a dark blue teardrop beneath the left.

It certainly cut an impressive picture, if you kept in mind that he _wanted_ to be laughed at. And most of the bonuses made sense as well, though he had no idea what juggling, tailoring, or acrobatics had to do with anything. Well... maybe acrobatics. That was a lot of... jumping and stuff, right? So that might help a shinobi a little. He still didn't get the point of the other two though. He paused, and blew gently at the plaque, revealing a sidenote that had been covered in dust.

_Note- Discomfort bonus. Archetype grows generally more and more uncomfortable when in clothes differing from those pictured. The further difference, the more discomfort. Hint- Minor genjutsu can counteract this, making it _look_ like the character is wearing something else, while underneath the illusion the motley remains._

Well, that didn't seem too unreasonable. He shrugged deciding not to put this off any longer. A moment later and...

"This child... is the Hero of Konoha!"

The infantile Naruto sighed deeply. Here we go again.

xxx

Well... that was interesting. Just like the plaque had said, Sarutobi had, for no reason he could discern, and against the flow of events he'd expected, taken time every so often to read that book to him. And then, just two years into this incarnation, he'd suddenly found himself floating nearby through no action of his own, as his small body moved by itself, cheering on the clown and making a declaration of his desire. Sarutobi had chuckled.

And, just like the warning had said, his clothes from that point on had started feeling... itchy. Constraining. And it did indeed grow worse and more distracting over time, to the point that a six year old Naruto went dumpster diving for scraps of cloth to stitch into an approximation of the jacket he needed, complete with a few tarnished, rusty bells.

He'd actually been surprised at how easy it was to stitch the cloth together, when in previous incarnations it had taken weeks of work to learn a simple stitch to mend tears properly. Was that the tailoring bonus? That could actually be pretty neat... it was definitely easier to get ahold of fabric and thread than it was to find someone that wouldn't gouge him on the finished piece.

And the jacket alone had cut the sensations of discomfort down to a minimum for the next week. That was nice, as it had built up to the point where it felt like there were a flock of mosquitoes buzzing in his ears at all times. Then, of course, it started building back up again, and chibi-Naruto began a long term scavenger hunt.

He found a way to get access to a forgotten crate of make-up kits through a broken window in an old warehouse when he was seven. It took him a full six months to figure out how to put the crap on his face properly. Then he started working on how to apply the dye he'd found in the next stack of crates over. Lucky him... they had purple.

He got the yellow pants and the red shoes at the same time, but decided to take a little bit of license with them. He still painted large splotches of color on the baggy pants, but stitched drawstrings into the bottom hems to pull them tight so he wouldn't trip on them. And the shoes were only half a size too large.

The pink shirt cold wait. He was driving enough people away with the rest of it. On the other hand, that was kind of a good thing... the villagers had decided that he'd cracked and he was getting pretty decent service at shops now, as they'd all decided to sell him what he wanted as fast as they could so that he had no reason to stick around. That was no worse than being outright ignored, _and_ it meant he could buy stuff at normal price, so long as he was quick about it! He counted that as a victory. A minor one, but still.

Then it came time for him to begin attending the genin academy. Or, to put it more bluntly... it was fun time again!

xxx

"Uzumaki Naruto?"

The class was silent. Iruka sighed... there was always _someone_ who was late to the first day.

"Is Uzumaki Naruto here?"

A smokebomb went off suddenly, filling the room with a thin cloud of smoke. It would dissipate soon enough, with the windows and door partially open, but it was annoying nontheless.

"Uzumaki Naruto-kun-dono-sama-san is here, to break up the dreary, dull monotony of your miserably pointless little lives with a splash of color and chaos!"

There was a loud 'Donk' sort of sound in the smoke, of Iruka's fist making contact with the back of Naruto's head.

"Ow!"

"Idiot! Don't make trouble in class! Just... just take your seat."

xxx

Iruka groaned in the privacy of his office, massaging his temples and ignoring the neat stack of paperwork on his desk. It was inconcievable. He'd expected Uzumaki to be something of a class clown, but this! It wasn't just a little clowning... it was like there was a constant three ring circus running in his classroom!

In just this first week, Naruto had caused more trouble than Iruka himself had managed throughout his entire education! He didn't know whether to be impressed... or horrified. He'd also somehow managed to co-opt the services of several other genin hopefuls to follow his lead, further amplifying the chaos. Kiba hadn't been unexpected at all, given what he knew about him beforehand, but the Nara had come completely out of left field, given how incredibly lazy the boy was supposed to be. And with him had come the Akimichi as well. Iruka didn't know this, but it had actually taken Naruto several cumulative weeks worth of reloading the save in order to find the right buttons to press to get all of them at once.

Also, while those four were causing problems, he'd had to go straight into practical lessons, rather than going through theory like he'd intended to. The whole point of going through the boring stuff first was to make some of the kids drop out.

Problem.

When Naruto was bored, he didn't say it. He didn't even scream it at the top of his lungs, to get someone's attention. When Naruto was bored, he did something much, much worse. He looked for a way to alleviate that boredom.

Nobody in the immediate area was safe, under those circumstances. _Everyone_ became a possible target.

On the plus side, just about everyone in the class of sixty students were absorbing what he taught them like little sponges. They couldn't really afford not to, given that Naruto was learning just as fast, and would incorporate it into his 'playtime'.

Iruka sighed. There were a total of sixty children in his class. The problem was that his job wasn't just to teach them... he had to whittle their numbers down. Typically, fifteen of those sixty would drop out of the academy and look for different jobs. Of the forty five remaining, only twenty seven would pass the genin examination, and of those, only nine would pass the second, secret exam. Unfortunately, with Naruto's class of pandaemonium thrown into the mix, all sixty of them could probably pass the first exam. It _was_ just a simple bunshin test, after all. An E class Genjutsu that was almost never actually used by shinobi in the field, due to its simplicity.

The only one who even _looked_ like they might consider dropping out at this point was the Haruno girl, who was, for the most part, useless in the practical lessons despite the fact that she'd easily aced the one theoretical test he'd given them with an upper ninety-percent score. Simply put, she was all brains and no brawn. Not that that was a bad thing in itself! If she learned a little trickery, how to use that brain to her advantage, she could become a perfectly decent kunoichi.

The problem was that he could only think of two ways to convince kids to drop out. The first was the one he'd intended to use... lots of boring theory work, written tests, and study on incidental topics that didn't _really_ matter most of the time and that the individual students could look up on their own in the few cases that it did. The problem with that was that one of his students, who shall remain nameless for the moment but incidentally wears a _really_ stupid getup, reacts _far _worse to boredom than he could have ever planned for. If he tried to go that route, he ended up having to rein in the chaos, and ended up going nowhere, really fast. That brought him to the second plan, a more dubious one.

_Run them into the freaking ground!_

This plan was a course that was exactly the opposite of the first one. Work them into exhaustion physically first, _then_ drain them mentally with pointless paper exams while they were still slick with sweat. Outside, because if he took a whole class of sixty students back inside immediately after a heavy workout, open windows would to absolutely nothing to get rid of the stench. He nodded absently to himself, realizing that that was his best bet, and opened a drawer in his desk to withdraw a pen and a blank sheet of paper to make a quick outline of the new teaching plan. Maybe start with tree walking? No... that was a bit too advanced. Start with a bit of taijutsu, then the leaf exercise. That would work, and once all, or at least most, of the class had gotten that, move on to laps up and down trees.

His train of thought was interrupted as the trap that had been left in the drawer he was opening triggered, launching its contents at Iruka's head. The banana cream pie slowly slid down the trembling man's face before dropping to the floor. Iruka's eye had begun twitching rapidly.

"NAAA-RUUU-TOOO!"

xxx

A.N.

This was actually pretty fun to write, once I got into the swing of it. I had to go back and read that one where Naruto is raised by the Joker a couple of times to get back into the proper mindset for it, but it's all good. Basically, Jester Naruto is what he plays when he wants to have fun. He's more likely to toss a cream pie than a kunai, or he'll smack someone around with a rubber chicken rather than attack seriously. For those that are interested, Naruto _will_ soon enough figure out a way to switch from one archetype to another unlocked archetype that is in the same line of the first. Like, he could switch from Jester Naruto to Harlequin Naruto, and back again, but not to, say, Haremlord Naruto.

Note, he will not be unlocking that last save possibly in Omake. And you'll just have to wait and see what Harlequin Naruto is like. Speaking of Omake...

**OMAKE!**

Naruto grinned as he paused just inside the boundaries of the forest of death and began, of all things, dancing to an inaudible tune while chanting something under his breath. If the Chuunin guards were close enough to hear, they'd know that it went something like-

"Left, left, forward, back, circle, back, forward, left, left, forward, forward, left, right, right, right, square, circle, square, right, select!"

-Which of course made absolutely no sense. Then again, niether did what happened next, when Naruto was struck by lightning and lit up with a powerful aura, accompanied by a deep, booming voice from nowhere.

**"God Mode: Activated!"**

"All right!" screamed Naruto, surging into the forest, his wild aura attracting other chunnin candidates like moths to a flame.


End file.
